The Conservative Zone

Thoughts from a Conservative living with mental illness.

Monday, May 31, 2004

Memorial Day

Today is the day we recognize the ultimate sacrifice that our Sons of Liberty have paid. From the greens of Lexington to the streets of Falujah, our citizen soldiers continue to lay down their lives for our liberty.

Freedom is never free, it can only be paid by willing blood. It must be purchased daily, and we miss a payment at the peril of our destruction.

The Navy has a habit of naming ships after battles so we never forget. Here is but a sample:

If your American History did not cover these battles, please Google them to find out about these battles so that these men and women can continue to live on in our memories.

As I write this, tears stream down my cheeks for those who didn't come home. An unabashed love for my brother and sister soldiers, sailors and Marines, I am not ashamed to admit to these tears. I shed these tokens of love for those who went before and after me because nothing else I could give would have as much meaning.

As you place flags on the graves of these fallen heroes, remember that there is no gravestone for those who died at sea, for that is where they are buried.

Let us never forget their sacrifice, their blood spilt so that, "...the government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth."

The inmates are running the asylum

It relates the story of a physically deformed girl who is being harassed because of her deformity.

A 13-year-old Denver girl said she was threatened with a knife at her middle school and her hair was set on fire, yet she was the one who was told to stay home for the remainder of the school year while her alleged attacker wasn't suspended or even investigated.

[...]

7NEWS discovered that while Glowczewski was sent home, her alleged attacker is still in school, even though administrators confirmed he had a knife.

[...]

Meanwhile, both Mark Stevens, the spokesman for Denver Public Schools, and the superintendent declined to discuss the case or DPS policy for dealing with such issues. That seems to be the same response Glowczewski's parents got when they complained to the administration.

I can sympathize with this girl as my ADD/bipolar made me "weird" and I never fit into any social groups in school. I know what it's like to be an outcast and be picked on and it's not fun.

My heart goes out to Courtney and I hope she kicks the bullys and the schools ass.

Thursday, May 27, 2004

This is worth a laugh

AI is so hypocritical is isn't funny. They don't speak against the mass murder of 300,000 by Saddam. They are silent when 2,000,000 are hacked to death by machete. Not a word about Ethnic Cleansing that claims tens of thousands. They speak up only when the US stumbles and wounds someone's feelings. Why? Because only the US has some people that will commiserate with such things. Everybody else doesn't care and doesn't listen to AI.

Cos is still kicking

"I think that the context of the situation, the Brown case was interesting," said William Spriggs, executive director of the National Urban League's Institute for Opportunity & Equality. "The key point of the efforts of Thurgood Marshall and Charles Houston was that no matter how hard African Americans try, that discrimination was a permanent barrier to further advancement. I think [Mr. Cosby's] comments missed the point of how real those barriers are."

Excuse me? Excuse me? Thurgood Marshall made it to the Supreme Court of the United States. Colin Powell is Secretary of State. Condi Rice is National Security Advisor. And those people ain't tokens, people.

While there are more obstacles to black people, there are still ways to get through that glass ceiling that weren't there even 10 years ago.

I mentioned this in my blog a while back (too bad there is no search function), there are three rules:

Finish high school

Don't have a child until you are married

Don't have a child until you are 20.

If you follow these rules, you have a 90% chance of staying out of poverty. If you break ONE rule, you have an 80% chance of ending up in poverty. From what I see about the black population of Memphis (and it's easy to see, blacks make up 50% of the population here) is thousands break all three rules. I see whole neighborhoods in such condition, unmarried women with 5 kids by 5 different boyfriends and so on. I wish there was something I could do, but it requires that these people do the effort to get themselves out of poverty. I am powerless, they have all of the power to get themselves out of poverty, they just don't do anything about it.

More oxygen sucking

It seems that former President Clinton is determined to kill Senator Kerry's chance for election.

Clinton Book to Be Published by Knopf Next Month. With a release date of June 22, just about a month before the Democrat convention, this book will divert attention from Senator Kerry and further slim his chances for election. Which of course sets up Hillary for 2008.

The funny thing about the article is while it's about Bill Clinton, it has a picture of Hillary. Things that make you go Hmmm...

No parental control

Of course it is sickening to see a THREE year-old child die due to weight complications, but what really gets me is there is not ONE WORD about parental responsibility. It makes the assumption that the parents have no control over the situation, being totally at the mercy of food advertising.

I'm not a regular watcher of Maury Povich, but I did see one where the parents over fed young children to the point that they looked like miniature sumo wrestlers. There was one infant (less than one year old) that weighed over 60 pounds. The poor kid was so fat it couldn't move. These parents fed their children at every little whimper, no matter what the kid was crying about. It showed a sickness within the parents that was disgusting to see.

It is the parents responsibility to provide diet and portion control. To have such drastically overweight children actually shows direct and intentional neglect by the parents. This should not happen. But short of taking the children away I don't know what to do. You can only 'educate' so far, but there are people who just don't care, as long as the kids aren't screaming to be taken to Mickey's.

This requires tough love and a balanced diet. It's not the easy path, but like I've said before, the things worth having are never on the easy path.

I've been invited!

Fellow Memphian Mick, who runs Fishkite, has invited me to be one of at least several co-bloggers of MemphisRedBlogs. There is only a placeholder page there right now, but look for my daily take on things there as well.

Wednesday, May 26, 2004

Colonial House

I stumbled across an Oprah show last week where she spent a weekend with a friend in 1628 on the set of the PBS show Colonial House. Mike of Half-Bakered has a good synopsis here.

What I saw about it was the harshness of colonial life. No toilets or outhouses, no running water, back breaking work from sunup to sundown. The kind of work that wears you out by the ripe old age of 35. Where mothers died in childbirth and 50% of children died in their first year of life.

There was no instant fix, premade food. No supermarkets. You ate what you grew or what the men dragged home from the wilds.

This, "pristine, natural" way of living is how wide-Left Liberals want everybody (but themselves) to live, "in tune with nature."

Never forget how far they routinely go. Spikes in trees, burning down housing developments, you know. Protecting Mother Nature.

Humor Wednesday

Things are pretty bad

It seems my medication has been losing its effectiveness. I have been under a constant attack for several days now. While I do get up and do certain things (like the blog), they are few and far between. Most of the time I am hiding somewhere, like in the bed, in the closet or in the chair. I smell like a skunk and know it, but I can't bring myself to take a shower. I shaved last night, for the first time in almost two weeks. I can't remember the last time I brushed my teeth. Yecch.

I hate this debilitating illness. It takes so much away from my quality of life, and I know it. No matter how much I want to do it, to take care of myself, it just isn't enough. I disgust myself because I am not strong enough to do what needs to be done.

Loss of belief

Throckmorton reserved his harshest criticism for what he views as GLSEN's attempt to coerce students into supporting same-sex marriage on the grounds that it is a civil right. By equating same-sex marriage with the struggles of black Americans, the curriculum appears to be suggesting that students who oppose homosexual marriage are racist or oppressive, he said.

Do you see what is wrong here? It continues:

"When discussing this issue," the GLSEN curriculum suggests, "help students to move past preoccupations with the 'rightness' or 'wrongness' of same-sex coupling or homosexuality in general. Place the debate over marriage within the context of human rights, thereby expanding the dialogue beyond the realm of morality."

Throckmorton's reaction: "It is astonishing for the GLSEN curriculum to declare a student's moral beliefs as irrelevant to any issue. For students who organize their lives around a moral code, this objective is coercive."

Amen.

It is certainly within any persons purview to determine if a certain behavior is right or wrong according to their belief system. To neutralize such a thing is plain wrong.

Being able to have a belief system is part of the freedom that makes up the United States. To try and have it taken away from our children like this is the first step towards the Thought Police. When everything must be described in certain ways and no other, we have lost.

Another reason not to live in Krazyfornia

Yes, along with just about every personal piece of information short of your tax records, the state Senate wants you to surrender a thumbprint as well. Of course, this does nothing other than harass the gun owner, because these thumbprints are not checked against any databases, nor are they entered into any. So why oppose this? Simply because it is unnecessary to surrender a thumbprint. It serves no purpose, so why do it?

If the bullets were serialized, I could see something like this. But it is impossible because 4,000,000,000 (that's 4 billion) rounds are fired in the US every year, and serialization, even by lot number is nigh impossible. Not to mention distortion or obliteration of the serial number when the round is fired. See what I mean?

Let's hope this gets shot down in the house assembly.

UPDATE: I forgot to add this. If I lived there, I would not be affected since I made my own ammunition. I don't think components are covered under this law. In the case of rifle ammunition, I would go through Cheaper Than Dirt.

Tuesday, May 25, 2004

Inappropriate for business

The lack of proper English that is taught in our schools is appalling. And it is getting worse. Our kids are routinely communicating in IM (instant messaging) mode, even during normal message modes such as email and public forum messages.

I attend several message forums to discuss various aspects of the wargames I play and my other hobbies. In several of them, the lack of grammar, punctuation and other things make reading these messages equal to licking sandpaper.

The bad news is our kids are carrying this garbage over the real world. I tell the kids who can't/won't spell/capitalize/grammar properly that the best job they can hope for has pictures to explain what you are supposed to do.

And so it goes. It doesn't take much to relegate your resume to the trash, and today's kids are coming up with new reasons all the time.

If you are such a young adult, or you are the parent of such a young adult, straighten them out before it's too late.

Gun Control, bad idea

Ever since 1994, when President Clinton signed the Assault Weapons ban into law, it also limited magazines to a maximum of 10 rounds. Well, it seems that the high capacity magazines are wearing out. Gun Control Harming U.S. Troops details this situation.

As with all gun control ideas, this was a bad one. VPC, CPHV, et.al. never considered that criminals were smart enough to bring extra magazines along and actually reload. How novel of an idea, reloading.

The article also goes on to decry the use of 5.56mm rounds in use by the US military. This I think is also justified, as the 5.56 is not a killing round. It is simply too light of a bullet at 55 grams to bring down a human being. Then of course you have the logic that if you wound everybody rather than kill them, you swamp the medical facilities, plus it takes 2-3 guys off the battle line transporting the wounded to the hospital. So I can see both sides, but I would rather have actual casualties than wounded on their side.

Most gun laws are stupid. Beyond restricting ownership from those with felony criminal or mental records (and yes, I am in the latter category), there should be very few laws that restrict ownership and use. I firmly believe that if you want to carry a firearm for self protection, then the government should get out of the way and let you do it.

I also believe that if a criminal gets killed in the commission of a crime, we should stick his head on a pike to serve as a warning to others.

UPDATE: The 5.56mm round is 55 GRAINS, not grams. 55 grains comes in at just over 3.5 grams. Big difference in weight.

Monday, May 24, 2004

Cable is back

Well, the cable modem came back when I tried it last night. I still wanted the service tech out here this morning, and he came and told me I had a marginal signal. He said he would talk with the maintenance guys about boosting the signal since I am at the end of the physical line. Hopefully no more interruptions.

Condescending Kerry

Of course, the Senator forgets his own bicycle mishap on level ground. He's the one who should be asking about training wheels. But then again, Kerry needs training wheels on his snowboard, since he can't stay upright on that either. It seems the score for mishaps is Kerry 2, Bush 1.

Password protection

It seems that "buster4513" is a lot more memorable and just as secure as "f49T22Hecs".

Are your passwords like this? Or just something simple as a family or pets name? How often do you change your passwords?

I just had to change mine because I was starting to get spam where I was the sender. Either I have picked up a worm or virus (unlikely) or someone hacked my email password. So, just for securities sake, I changed the passwords on all of my important accounts.

Gun controllers changing tactics

One thing you can always count on about Liberals is they always stick to their beliefs no matter the facts staring them in the face. This seems to be changing, at least as far as gun control is concerned. Whither Gun Control? asks this very same question.

It seems that they are starting to come around and they are conceding about how the Assault Weapons ban is nothing more than about appearances rather than functionality. They are also conceding that massive gun grabs such as in England and Australia only disarm citizens, leaving criminals able to purchase firearms on the black market.

I don't their beliefs are changing, but they are changing tactics and it will bite us in the bottom if we don't keep our eyes open and our ears up.

Friday, May 21, 2004

Telemarketers on your cell phone

It references a Yahoo! story about how 75% of cell phone numbers are now suddenly "open" to telemarketers. Thankfully, it lists the Do Not Call web page, where you can register your phone number to keep those pesky guys at bay.

Go and sign up now, before they waste your daytime minutes and interrupt you during meetings.

Ann strikes a nerve

This is my first time quoteing Ann Coulter. I don't think it will be my last. On May 19, she posts this op-ed, against the LA Times. I quote the entire article here because there is no page other than the front page for me to direct you to.

The Other Lame "Times"

If liberals won't move on from the prison abuse photos calculated to incite hatred toward the very troops liberals loudly claim to "support," I'm not moving on from the fact that the editor of the Los Angeles Times, John Carroll, is instructing journalists on ethics. The editor of the Los Angeles Times telling reporters how to behave ethically is a complete contradiction, like ... oh, I don't know ... giving Yasser Arafat a Nobel Peace Prize or something. You know, just patently silly.

This is the same L.A. Times that engaged in desperate, 11th-hour attempts to sabotage Arnold Schwarzenegger during the California recall election with lurid sex stories from anonymous assistant crudite girls who worked the craft services tables on Arnold's movies from the 1980s and were still trying to break into show biz 20 years later.

This is the same L.A. Times where reporters had to be told in an internal memo (from Carroll himself) to stop injecting opinion in news stories, specifically the practice of prefacing the term "pro-life" with the term "so-called."

This is the same L.A. Times that in recent years instituted racial and gender quotas for sources on "so-called" news – oops, I mean, news stories – which puts reporters in the position of having to round up a black expert on nuclear fusion, a Native American expert on cubism, and a female expert on great moments in football.

This is the same L.A. Times that responded to the largest number of canceled subscriptions in the paper's history from readers enraged by the paper's liberal bias by putting Michael Kinsley, one of America's leading leftists, in charge of the editorial page.

And this is the same L.A. Times that pays unrepentant Castro fan and former North Korea defender Robert Scheer for his hysterical anti-American rants every Tuesday, after hiring him mostly because his wife was on the editorial board.

The title of Carroll's speech was "The Wolf in Reporter's Clothing: The Rise of Pseudo-Journalism in America." One has to admit: If you wanted an expert on the practice of partisan pseudo-journalism, you could do a lot worse than the editor of the Los Angeles Times.

Alas, Carroll's speech wasn't the "how-to" lecture dozens of would-be yellow journalists were expecting when they showed up for his presentation. Like the "ombudsman" at the New York Times, Carroll chastised his own newspaper for some small, irrelevant infraction no one would ever complain about while ignoring the paper's consistent Soviet-style reporting that has led thousands of readers to cancel their subscriptions.

Instead, Carroll's speech was an attack on Fox News Channel. If conservatives complained about CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, PBS, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, Vogue, Reader's Digest, NPR, etc. etc. half as much as liberals scream about Fox News, even I would say conservatives were getting to be a bore on the subject.

Carroll's case-in-chief of Fox News' "pseudo-journalism" is "The O'Reilly Factor." (Only liberals could force conservatives into defending Bill O'Reilly.) Carroll lyingly says of O'Reilly: "Where, he asked, was the L.A. Times on the so-called Troopergate story?"

In fact, O'Reilly never mentioned "Troopergate." He didn't mention the Arkansas State Troopers. And he certainly didn't mention "so-called Troopergate." He compared the L.A. Times coverage of Schwarzenegger's alleged inappropriate behavior decades earlier with that paper's coverage of the scandals of various Democrats – among them the stunning, contemporaneous sexual assaults by Bill Clinton on identifiable women.

I suppose it's easy to confuse sex scandals involving Bill Clinton – I keep a "Women Bill Clinton Has Raped or Groped at a Glance" file on my Blackberry, just as a time-saver – but O'Reilly was referring not to the 1993 allegations from Arkansas State Troopers, but to the 1998 Clinton sex scandals involving allegations from specific women, such as Kathleen Willey. We know this because while the word "trooper" never passed O'Reilly's lips, he did expressly refer to "Kathleen Willey."

When it came to these Clinton sex assaults, how did the L.A. Times do? Reporter Richard A. Serrano described Willey as "embittered" and said her accusations were "fraught with contradiction" – unlike the truth-tellers who waited 20 years to make anonymous accusations against Schwarzenegger. The Times angrily editorialized that Clinton's impeachment was "grounded not in what is right for the country but what best helps House managers save face." (How anyone can use the expression "save face" in defense of Bill Clinton is beyond my understanding.)

You don't have to enter the "No Spin Zone" to see the "disconnect," as liberals love to say, between the L.A. Times' frantic, wild-eyed search for a woman – any woman, even anonymously – to accuse Schwarzenegger of groping her at some point during the previous quarter century, and the Times' equally determined efforts to discount the many credible accounts of women, all named, who plausibly accused Bill Clinton of raping, groping or otherwise sexually assaulting them.

But Carroll dearly wishes O'Reilly had said "Troopergate" because apparently that's the last time Carroll can remember the L.A. Times going after a Democrat the way the Times goes after Republicans as a matter of policy. The Times' Troopergate story came out in December 1993. But Carroll is still citing that one time over a decade ago when the L.A. Times engaged in nonpartisan reporting, bragging: "At one point, it had nine reporters in Little Rock." OK, but there were 24 reporters on the Schwarzenegger story.

Cosby is a conservative

Bill Cosby gave the NAACP a run for its money the other day. Cos gives 'em pause show what can happen if one black man stands up for what is right and the truth.

"These people marched and were hit in the face with rocks to get an education, and now we've got these knuckleheads walking around," he declared. "The lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal. These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids - $500 sneakers for what? And won't spend $200 for 'Hooked on Phonics.'

"I can't even talk the way these people talk: 'Why you ain't,' 'Where you is' ... You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth!"

This is so true. When I drive through the neighborhoods of Memphis, it is mostly in the black areas that I see boarded up and abandoned houses, dilapidated houses, trash in the streets, unmowed lots. Not to say there aren't white areas like that, but it's an 80/20 split.

The educations system and the parents are failing these black children, committing most of them to such conditions as a life sentence. If has got to stop.

Theodore Shaw, head of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, was quick to tell the crowd that most people on welfare are not black.

That is true. Blacks make up about 17% of the population and about 40% of welfare recipients, which means they are drastically out of proportion.

Thursday, May 20, 2004

Cable crapped out again

My cable connection was out for a week last week, then they had a service outage yesterday, then my connection crapped out again today. I'm waiting for a callback to schedule hopefully a priority service call. I have stuff on the hook and my alarm set for 6am to get them up for you to read. See you tomorrow.

NBC Attack

I predict that we will have either a biological agent released on the 10th of October, or a chemical/nuclear attack on Halloween. The reason why the bio attack is on the 10th is these kind of attacks need time to build up to critical mass.

These attacks are designed to duplicate the effect of regime change that happened in Spain. It will have the exact opposite effect.

People will overwhelmingly vote for Bush if an attack happens because the American people will be reminded of the War on Terror, what kind of people we face and who is best qualified to face the terrorists. God help us all if Kerry wins, because his waffling will mean that those chemical attacks will become a common occurrence here in the US.

If the terrorists want to play with the big boys, then I hope they won't mind us using a couple of our own toys as well. Any government found supporting the terrorists in question will find out the kind of hell a 'limited' nuclear strike entails.

Missile Launcher Blues

If this is what I think it is, this training device fires special 9mm pistol rounds that you can see throughout the flight, along the same trajectory that the missile would fly. If you can hit a target with these 9mm rounds, you can hit it with the real missile. Which has me worried that someone has the real thing and was using this to train.

I don't believe the quote that says that you can buy this in any gun store, but then again I haven't been in a gun store for a couple of years.

Tuesday, May 18, 2004

The sizzle fizzles

As a critic who awarded Moore's Oscar-winning "Bowling for Columbine" four stars, I was particularly disappointed with "Fahrenheit 9/11."

If this is good press, I can hardly wait to hear what the opponents have to say.

Of course, in the heart of France, with 'art critics' reviewing, it received one of, if not the longest standing ovation ever at Cannes. I'm not surprised, considering the crowd is over 90% Bush haters. Nothing surprising at all.

Miramax has too much invested in the agenda that this puts forth, so it has bit the bullet and will surrender probably half of it's profits to another film distributor so this piece of garbage can make it to theatres in a couple of weeks.

ADD Under 5?

This is over medicating. Spending Soars on Drugs to Control Children talks about in the opening paragraphs about medicating children under 5 for ADD. These kids are SUPPOSED to be bundles of energy. To medicate them shows shades of This Perfect day. This just rankles me that we are so willing to medicate our children into obedience. Sure there are kids out there that need such chemical intervention for them to be able to control themselves, but I'll bet if we cut the sugar intake of these kids by 50%, a lot of them would no longer need it.

Hedging the news

Iraq used the chemical during its war with Iran in the 1980s and is believed to have used it against Kurdish Iraqi civilians. According to U.N. weapons inspectors, sarin-type agents constituted a significant part of Iraq's chemical weapons arsenal - about 20 percent of all chemical weapons agents that Saddam's government declared it had produced. [Emphasis mine]

What do these people think wiped out an entire town? The common cold? The pictures of the dead from that gas attack will stay with me for the rest of my life. Bodies twisted up in agony, women trying to protect their children from the mist of chemical agent, it was ghastly.

Monday, May 17, 2004

Back online!

Well, just what I thought happened. The thunderstorm that passed through here the other day fried my trap and prevented any signal from getting through. As soon as I got my basic cable set up, I turned on the cable modem and it worked! Phew! I can't tell you how painful it is when I don't have instant super fast access to the internet. Withdrawal pains and all that. I could never go back to dial up. If you don't have a cable connection, GET IT. You literally have 20 times the speed that you can get on your best day on dial up.

Well, that didn't last long

I tried, I really tried. I pulled up some articles that I thought I should comment on, but the words would not come. I got that Limbaugh article out, but that was like passing... well, it was difficult. I worked for two days to get those few paragraphs out, and that is not worth the effort. It took some head-banging and closet time to get the thoughts together enough to put out what I did.

That is the one thing a blog should never be, a difficult or mandatory thing to do. So, I'll just go back to what I was doing and leave the extra head banging out of it.

I have all of these pre-written, and I got up at 6AM so I don't burn any daytime minutes on my cell phone to do this. I just don't feel right posting them Sunday night for Monday consumption and post-dating them is weird, because it posts according to Pacific time instead of Central time which is where I live. I set it to post at 8AM, it shows up at 10 with an 8 o'clock postmark. It makes my head hurt thinking about it.

The passing of an age

I should have mentioned this last week Wednesday, but I was a little too worked up about it until now.

My case manager for the past 4 years, Hugh, saw me for the last time this past Wednesday. He had to quit his job and move to the other side of Tennessee for family reasons.

After that amount of time, you really build a rapport with somebody, especially when you have to tell him the extra-personal things that he needs to know in order to make sure your meds are right, if you need to go to the hospital and so on. He regarded me as an adopted brother and went out of his way to help wherever he could.

Hugh, when you read this, leave me an email or feedback and let me know how you're doing. I'll let you know how the new guy is working out.

Scamming the Scammer

I absolutely love this! A guy selling a laptop on eBay gets a mysterious email, and off he goes on a wonderful track of trying to stick it to the scammer. A PDF of the entire caper is here. Pictures of the item sent are included and all I can advise is not to be drinking anything when you see it. You don't want your drink coming out your nose and all over your monitor!

Another step towards space

The X-Prize is a $10 million prize for the first group that can get 3 people up to 100km and recycle all the parts for a second flight no more than two weeks later. This is the group that has gotten the closest so far, and considering that they already crossed Armstrong's line (100,000 feet) they have earned astronaut pins.

A (failed) attempt to roast Rush

Rush got to where he is now by two things: working hard and being right. A lot of liberals thinks he got to where he is by continuously lambasting President Clinton, but his period of greatest growth came during the time of Bush 41, and his criticizing of President Bush's policies and actions. As I recall, Rush was merciless when President Bush 41 raised taxes after his "NO NEW TAXES" speech.

This article uses two out of context quotes spliced together ala Michael Moore (see note below) to give you the impression that Rush said something that he did not. Sure, he said the words, but the meaning was twisted. When Rush made the comment about hazing, that was when we saw the first pictures, which were not violent or degrading. He also condemned those pictures and acts for most of that show, coming up with only the "skull and bones" comment at the last minute of the show.

What I like is the Media Matters mission statement:

Media Matters for America defines "conservative misinformation" as "news or commentary presented in the media that is not accurate, reliable, or credible and that forwards the conservative agenda."

So, I guess "news or commentary presented in the media that is not accurate, reliable, or credible and that forwards the Liberal agenda" is just fine, totally correct and no need to monitor those? I thought so.

Rush is just as critical of the Republicans when they screw up as he is of the Democrats. Despite the ranting and raving of the Left, he is fair and impartial.

The things he talks about are straight out of the Liberal media, so you can't say he just makes this stuff up. He has a stack of stuff that he reads and comments on. Pretty much what I do. In fact, I take a certain amount of pride in commenting on some story, then hear Rush comment about the same story during his show. It makes me feel like I "scooped" him.

* Michael Moore during his Bowling for Columbine drastically took NRA President Charlton Heston out of context. He spliced parts different speeches together to create an appearance of Mr. Heston that was 180 degrees out of what he actually said. If you look close, you can see him in different clothes for a couple of the segments he is on screen. A truthful rebuttal on this can be found here.

Friday, May 14, 2004

Open mouth, insert keyboard

I always check my refer logs, and I came across a link to this post of Ryan Russon's. Now, Spike a while backand here equated my Conservatism with my mental illness. I figured this was more of the same, so in the comments I said as much. I let him have it with both barrels. You can read my comments after the post.

Now, as soon as Ryan read my comments, he apologized both on his blog and on mine. Now, I am willing to cut him some slack, but my forgiveness only goes so far.

I find it perturbing that he would mock the secondary title of my blog without knowing if I was serious or not. It shows a level of crass and heartlessness that I hope that is not indicative of his normal personality.

Also, the current political crisis in Iraq is serious and not to be taken lightly. It has been treated by the military and the administration with the proper amount of seriousness that it deserves. Bad things were done and once discovered, the system began to work. It is not "already" someone is going to courts-martial, that process has been going on for several months. To Photoshop President Bush and the inappropriate message on the wall, he...well, desecrate is a little strong, but not by much. It makes light of what I consider to be a sobering subject and it just isn't right, especially to try and link a man to it who knew a) there was a problem and b) it was being investigated fully. Details are for subordinates.

This incident has caused me to question the focus of this blog. I have purposefully stayed away from the headlines, mainly because I thought there was already enough comments on the subject and one more wouldn't make a difference. Maybe it will. I will be adding my own comments and insight to the headlines of the day for at least the near future, as far as my condition allows me. In the time before and after an attack, my thinking becomes muddled, and I am unable to express myself on any level. Usually, I have to "recover" from my posting for a couple of hours before I can continue with the business of my life.

Thursday, May 13, 2004

I can't do it

I had the family with me for about 6 hours today, and that has overloaded me to a significant degree. Coupled with the internet connection going out and the S L O W speed of the cell phone and also... well, you don't want to hear about that.

I am just not up to staying up late and perusing news sites. I know my limits and I am dangerously close to them. I am taking my evening medications and heading to bed before my head really explodes.

These people are nuts

These people have a rather twisted and naive view of the world. They believe the opposite of peace is war. The true opposite of war is slavery. Slavery can be peaceful, if you accept it.

There are people out there who want power and are willing to do anything to obtain that power. There is no stopping them, there is no appeasing them. They do not care if they had to kill one or one million people to get that power. The only way to stop these people is to kill them. The judicious, rationed, justified use of force.

These people are trying to make my head explode.

Internationally, the Department of Peace would research and analyze foreign policy and make recommendations to the president on how to address the root causes of war.

The Department of Peace would also intervene in military crises; establish a "non-preemptive approach" to U.S. foreign policy; and organize "peace summits."

With people like this in charge, we would have had a Cold War with HITLER rather than the Soviet Union.

The root cause of war (again) are people who want power and who are willing to do anything and kill anybody who opposes them. If we "get rid" of war and they don't, then WE BECOME THEIR SLAVES, because they will threaten or conquer us into submission. Unless we use force back to wipe them out and end the threat.

"From international conflicts to domestic issues such as gang, school and domestic violence, the Department of Peace would systematically root out the underlying causes of violence in our culture," the Alliance said in a press release.

Gah. The only way to wipe out violence is to dope the whole world, ala THX 1138 or This Perfect Day.

I would love to watch these "Department of Peace" idiots try to talk the local Crips chapter out of their weapons and to give up their violent ways.

I'm sorry, but my head exploded. Excuse me while I go and put the pieces back together.

Here are some juicy comments, spoken with true heart and total seriousness by these people:

The United States "is on the slippery slope to theocratic fascism."

"The Catholic Church has been secretly encouraging oral sex for years."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld "ought to be tortured."

"The day I say thank you to Rumsfeld is the same day I'll say thank you to the 12 people who raped me."

Rock bottom came when [Randi Rhodes] compared Bush and his family to the Corleones in the "Godfather" saga. "Like Fredo, somebody ought to take him out fishing and phuw," she said, imitating the sound of gunfire.

I look forward to when WMQM here in Memphis starts playing Air America. I listen to Rush and Sean Hannity while driving my passengers around town. Sometimes I get comments about them, and I can't wait to hear the comments while listening to this...this...programming.

Kerry on the dole

The Viking Pundit loves to talk about his Senator AWOL and how he doesn't earn the people's money because he doesn't show up to do his job. He's too busy running for President to do his job, and it has bit him and his fellow Democrats in the butt multiple times. Here is but one example: Kerry Fails to Extend Jobless Benefits.

The Senate rejected the stunt by one vote. The only one of the 100 lawmakers not voting was Kerry, who deemed it more important to attack the president in the Bush stronghold of Kentucky.

Nah, it wouldn't have mattered. He would have voted against it after voting for it.

The Chicago Sun-Times quoted Troutman as saying that she deserved round-the-clock protection: "Deserve it? Damn right. I should receive the protection I am receiving. I am an elected official. You're darn right," she was quoted as saying. [Emphasis mine]

Whatever happened to our elected officials being responsible with the powers they are given? Obviously this is not the case here. The good people of Chicago is shelling out about $3,000 a month so one person can get special protection. Do you think this is right?

Not enough eyes

The CIA was eviscerated by the Clinton Administration. Between budget cuts (led by our present wannabe President Kerry) and Jamie Gorlicks memos, the CIA was unable to warn us about 9/11. U.S. Has Too Few CIA Agents tells the tale.

With surprising candor for a seasoned spy, Pavitt, who has spent more than 30 years at the CIA, wrote in testimony to the 9/11 Commission, "We cover a terrorist target around this globe using a cadre of case officers that is smaller than the number of FBI officers who work in New York City alone."

According to the Times report, an FBI official disclosed that only about 1,100 agents are assigned to the New York field office, which includes the city's five boroughs, Long Island and six counties north of the city.

Now, thankfully, under President Bush, we are rebuilding our intelligence agency.

The clandestine agency wants to move quickly ahead of where it was before the invasion of Iraq, a top intelligence target for more than a decade. At that time, the CIA had just four human sources of intelligence in the Iraqi government, senior intelligence officials now acknowledge.

This is simply not acceptable, and I'm glad we are doing something about it. We have relied on orbital photographs and intercepted communications too long. We need boots on the ground and we need it now.

Tuesday, May 11, 2004

She's Baaack!

The ranting anti-Asshat woman of the Blogosphere is back! Rachel Lucas is making a limited (but hopefully sustained) reappearance into the Blogosphere. Please welcome her back (as soon as she opens her email account again!)

The horror, the horror

I was perusing the Air America website last night (you know, keep your friends close, but your enemies closer and all that) and I saw the list of markets they are planning to expand into, and damned if Memphis, TN ain't one of them! They have listed WMQM, 1600AM as a prospective station. This presently is a Christian gospel station, which, like WLIB, is taking away minority radio programming to serve white liberals. Typical.

Now all they have to do is survive until WMQM switches over. AA has already lost four top executives, plus they missed a payroll this month. Who knows what will happen.

Crisis averted

Monday, May 10, 2004

I'm scared

I see my medication nurse every 28 days, but she gives me a 30 day supply, because it takes me a couple of days to get to the pharmacy and get the scrip filled. Well, I was up to a two week extra supply, which she compensated for by only ordering me a 3 week supply this month.

The problem is I opened my new medications a couple of days ago and found one of them missing. I don't know if my med nurse left it off the scrip, or the pharmacy didn't fill it or what. No one told me about this change. Anyway, I've been trying for a week to get hold of both her and my case manager. No one is responding to my calls and I am beginning to be very scared.

It's taken a long time to find a mix that has me stabilized and I don't change it easily. I am afraid that things will get out of hand by Friday, because the one medication runs out Wednesday.

I'm sorry, but this personal emergency has taken the wind out of my sails as far as anything else is concerned, commenting on the news just isn't important when I look at that pill bottle with only two pills in it.

Maybe I'll feel better this afternoon, but I'm really wound up and need some closet time while I continue to call my unresponsive lifelines.

If I do run out and what I fear does come to pass, I will become a danger to myself and all those around me. I will have to start living in that closet and hope I don't think of a way to kill myself.

Friday, May 07, 2004

More shakeup at Air America

From Drudge:

In yet another sign of trouble for Air America Radio, the liberal talk network entering its fifth chaotic week on the air, co-founder and chairman Evan Cohen resigned Thursday, as did vice-chairman and investor Rex Sorensen.

The CHICAGO TRIBUNE is planning to report in fresh editions: The company also failed to make its scheduled payroll, leaving its staff roughly 100 radio personalities, writers, and producers unpaid until Thursday.

The departures of Cohen, a former political operative from Guam who was among the network's initial investors, and Sorenson, an investor who owns radio stations in Guam, mark the second executive shake-up at the fledgling network in as many weeks.

It seems the venture capital is running out a little faster than expected. Ah, well, it was good while it lasted... ;-)

Democracy vs. Republic

In the 1950s, a great American constitutionalist from Indiana, Sen. William Jenner, warned that "a democracy, the will of the majority is law. Anything is allowed, provided that the majority approves. There are no checks and balances, and the rights of the individual are not protected."

The senator continued by quoting from a U.S. Army Training Manual, which defined democracy as "government of the masses," which can result in "mobocracy, demagogism, discontent and anarchy." Liberals quickly had that manual removed from every military unit and installation.

If we had a true democracy, all it would take is a 51% vote on anything to make it legal. Things like bringing back slavery, or worse yet, open season on minorities. Don't laugh, because in 1960 such a vote could have come about, and to the detriment of the Black community.

The United States has a Representative Republic, where the People hire persons to serve for limited terms to represent a certain area or state and to discharge those duties as they see fit, but also considering input from their constituents. My lawmakers do not always agree with everything I do, nor would I expect them to. But I do expect them to listen to my input, and they do so. When I send letters to Washington to state my position for or against certain subjects or policies, I always get back a polite letter, even if my representatives aren't voting my way.

The ideology of the Far Left

The guise of modern-day terrorism is no longer limited to Palestinian suicide-bombers or the visceral images of the tragedy of 9/11. In a world of ever-increasing ideological disharmony, a new, equally violent terrorist has emerged - the eco-terrorist. Like the purveyors of radical Islamic terrorism, the eco-terrorist uses fear, intimidation, and violence in attainment of its goal, which for the eco-terrorist is simply the reclamation of the Earth to its pre-humanity condition, no matter what the cost. Heading-up this domestic terrorist offensive of radical animal-rights and extreme environmentalism is Paul Watson, who, even amidst the nation's grief over 9/11, made the audacious and frightening statement, "There's nothing wrong with being a terrorist, as long as you win."Emphasis mine.

You can't reason with these people. You can't defeat them in the arena of ideas, because you can't convince them of any ideas other than their own. It's pretty sad that there are people like this in the world. Not people who think that we need to preserve the environment, but those who will go to any lengths to carry out their agenda, including killing human beings.

John Kerry's 1st PH

It seems we live in fortuitous times. The doctor who treated Senator Kerry's 1st "combat wound" documented it separately from his medical records and kept it all these years. Kerry Purple Heart Doc Speaks Out.

To sum up the article, it looks like then-Lt Kerry fired a mortar round at the shore, which hit some rocks and exploded, ricocheting some fragments around and one got stuck in his arm. It required only a second to pull out and a simple band-aid to cover the wound.

You make your own decision on if he deserves a Purple Heart for it or not. But I've got to tell you, I picked up a bigger sliver of glass in my foot from walking around barefoot, and I pulled it out myself.

Gun-proofing your child

A little story about myself and my son: When my son was a young child, he was gun-proofed. He could recite the four rules of gun safety, and he had his own .22 rifle. He knew if he wanted to ask a question or see a gun, Dad would take the time to show him whatever he was curious about. He also cleaned his own rifle after going to the range. One time he broke the rules and accidentally pointed his rifle at another person. I snatched the gun away from him, then had my son apologize to the person he pointed at, then he apologized to the rangemaster as well. He then sat on the sidelines until I was finished shooting. He never broke a rule again.

He was also taught the NRA's Eddie Eagle way: If you see a gun, STOP! Don't touch! Leave the area! Tell an adult! That way if he found a strange gun he knew not to touch, or if he was visiting a friends house and the "friend" brought out a gun, he was trained to leave the house immediately and come home.

THIS IS THE WAY YOU TEACH A CHILD ABOUT GUNS! You teach them about what a gun does, not that it is an "evil" thing. When you teach about guns the Liberal way, you invite more curiosity about them and bring about the very thing you were "trying" to avoid.

Like the article says, you can't child-proof a gun, but you can gun-proof a child.

Tuesday, May 04, 2004

Lite posting

"Insanity"

It was in another article, that a Muslim expressed outrage at a bombing in Saudi Arabia and called the perpetrators "insane." Of course, that was because it was against fellow Saudis. It wouldn't have been insane had the target been Americans.

Muslim Terrorists Anger Muslims shows you that Muslims are normal people, they don't care about the bombings and deaths, as long as it doesn't happen to them.

Well, internal factions are starting to split the Muslim world. It is beginning to show that a large majority of Muslims actually believe in the peace that Mohammed taught, instead of the radical, "wipe out the infidels" mindset of the terrorists. These buzzards are coming home to roost. The radicals bomb infidels to get them to go away, and they bomb Muslims to get the peaceful ones to adhere to the terrorists twisted view of Islam.

Hopefully soon the peaceful Muslims will see there is no neutrality in this war. You are either for or against... the extremist Muslim factions.

No Draft, please

Your reading assignment today, Starship Troopers, by Robert A. Heinlein. Please pay attention to the fact that in that society, you can't vote, hold public service jobs (such as police) or run for office unless you have served a minimum of two years in either the military or some kind of AmeriCorps position.

Draft Reinstatement Is a Bad Idea. History has shown time and time again how the best armies are the ones that are best motivated. WWII was kind of an exception. Sure, we had the Draft, but we had a great motivator in Pearl Harbor as well.

I proudly served 13 years, 2 months and 2 days (but who was counting =) ) and I would not have had the same motivation had I been drafted.

This is a political ploy to actually destroy support for the War in Iraq, so please do not support such a bad idea.

Monday, May 03, 2004

Stupid people

You've seen the commercial. A park ranger at Old Faithful, being coy as to why it is so regular. But then it cuts to the ranger sneaking up to Old Faithful and feeding it a glass of the product, implying that even Old Faithful needs fiber to be regular.

Tonight, I saw the same ad, with a new disclaimer; "DRAMATIZATION: Please follow all park rules and Rangers directions."

Which undoubtedly somebody at least tried to jump over the safety fence and tried to feed some extra Metamucil to Old Faithful. If somebody actually got close, they most likely got caught or almost caught by the scalding water that comes out of Old Faithful.

What school does

First of all, the article talks about getting rid of the 'D' grade, going straight from a C- to an F. This would have been bad news for me and my Latin classes, but I would have deserved it.

School teaches you more than information. Sure, it is nice to know who discovered America and all that, but when you look at the process, not just the information, then things become clear.

If you want to earn those good grades, you have to be able to effectively study, learn and retain information for later retrieval. In the case of things like papers, you must learn the value of research and being able to pick out the salient bits of necessary information.

It is these processes that are the important things to learn in school. These are the things you bring to your job, that is if you want something other than a dead-end minimum wage job.

The people who learn these processes are the ones that get good grades as a byproduct of learning how to learn. I wish schools would teach the process as a primary class, instead of letting the student thrash about and learn the process almost by accident. Imagine how effective our children could be if they are taught these skills at the 6th-7th grade level.

But no, our schools will focus on the byproduct, or false self-esteem rather than on the process and real- self esteem. When you successfully complete a project, you earn that self-esteem and are proud of it, and you know you earned it. To be given false self-esteem leads to a big let down once you hit the real world and find out how things really operate. Then you find out how you've been cheated all those years of a real education.

As with all things, learn how to learn and there is no limit to how far you will go.

Losing the language

First of all, let me say there is no such thing as an Assault Weapon. There is an Assault Rifle, which is defined as a "Rifle of mid-power cartridge, able to fire full automatic, burst and semi-automatically." The rest are merely rifles of any caliber which automatically fire one round and reload for each pull of the trigger, no matter what its appearance is.

To use their terminology is to fight on my side of the board and I refuse to do that. The AW ban names 19 specific makes and models of such semi-automatic weapons, plus any weapon that has a certain amount of cosmetic features. The law in question never even slowed down the sale of semi-automatic weapons that are patterned after fully-automatic Assault Rifles.

"When your kids go back to school, will assault weapons, too?" the ad caption says. The caption is printed over a photograph of a young boy wearing a backpack who is walking away from the camera -- and appears to be heading to school.

Paid for by the Million Mom March, the ad promotes a Mother's Day march for "sensible gun laws."

The only sensible gun laws I can back are automatic 10-15 years for any felon caught with a gun or even ammunition. By and large (and I'm talking about 99.5%), the people who have concealed weapons permits are very much aware of the responsibility of they have when they carry, and discharge that responsibility correctly.

If you have the ability to carry, and you know you can shoot a person down who is a serious threat to you or your family (not everybody can), then I urge you to carry.

When the police issue a BOLO (Be On the LookOut) for a black male in a gold Cadillac, they aren't going to pull over a couple of white males in blue Subarus just to balance out the racial quotas, and neither should DOT.

You know, if any of the 19 involved in 9/11 had been a white male, DOT would not have had a problem pulling over every white male in every airport. That's the sad part about it.

The headline says it all

Sen. John Kerry has no right to scare senior citizens with "misinformation" about the Medicare Prescription Drug Law -- especially when he skipped the final vote on that bill, said House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.).

[...]

"Fact is, while promising his constituents he wouldn't miss any important votes, the Senate's most liberal member from Massachusetts skipped 36 of 38 votes, including final passage on improving Medicare and adding a much-needed prescription drug benefit."

Of course, his failing to vote or even show up for votes was well documented by one of the daily blogs I read, Viking Pundit, one of the few Conservatives in that state.

Senator Kerry is still missing Senate votes, he is campaigning so hard for the Big Seat he is not doing his present job. Ah, well, I guess the good side is he's not blocking important things.